Feel the heat: Yoga students sweat it out

Through a small lobby, behind a set of glass doors, students dressed in shorts and tank tops pulled their sticky mats into lines, covering them with towels. In the corner the face of a gas stove glowed, orange flames undulating in the dim. The air was moist. The temperature edged in on 100 degrees.

Following their teacher, Rick Resnick, the students took deep breaths, filling their lungs with warm air. Stretching their arms and clasping palms, they curved their bodies to the side, making a crescent shape like the moon that hung outside. Sweat rolled down backs and chests.

The class was a type of yoga called Bikram, a rigorous, California-bred, uber-trendy, trademarked style practiced in a room heated above 100 degrees.

Laughing Lotus is the only studio in the city to offer Bikram, but in the ever-expanding world of local yoga, heat seems to be contagious. Over the last few years, class temperatures in private studios and at The Alaska Club have been rising to 80, 85, 90, 95 degrees. It's a trend that started Outside years ago and makes sense in a subarctic climate. But not everyone likes it.

Among yoga-goers, the heatwave is making waves, drawing in new students and driving others away.

At Laughing Lotus, heat brings business. About 80 percent of the classes are either hot, like Resnick's, or warm, at 85 or 90 degrees, according to Svia Rothstein, who owns the studio with partner Kim Greeff.

At first Laughing Lotus, which opened about a year and a half ago, just turned up the thermostat. Then in the fall they put in a gas stove, adding ambience and making the heat more concentrated. Since then more students have been showing up, many of them new to yoga.

Anchorage was overdue for another yoga studio, Rothstein said. Building a reputation for warmth helped carve out a niche.

"Hot is hot," she said. "There's definitely a market for it."

Like a lot of people who have been doing yoga since before the heat craze, Rothstein admitted to feeling a little mixed about it. For one thing, it's more expensive. There's the heating bill and lots of mopping and cleaning to deal with the sweat and moisture that builds up during a class.

"To break even in class, you need more students," she said.

Being warm helps loosen muscles and all the sweating is cleansing, she said. On the other hand, sometimes it's nice to generate heat from the inside with vigorous practice, she said.

"I don't want you to sweat just because you're walking in the room."

UN-YOGA

Yoga disciplines are a little like Christian sects. There are dozens of types of yoga out there, many with a different "guru" personality at the center, different rules and different practices. Some strict devotees tout their type of yoga as "the true yoga," and look suspiciously at others.

There are different specifications about room temperature and mandates about chanting or breathing techniques. Some types emphasize meditation, others focus on pumping up heart rate. In Anchorage, it's common for teachers to combine different types in one class.

Resnick tends to be a purist. His Bikram classes follow the specifications of the style to the letter.

He was not into yoga at all when his sister dragged him to his first class in California in the mid-'90s. It was taught by Bikram Choudhury, a terse, opinionated Indian body-builder turned yogi. The room was hot and exercise intense, not the way he imagined yoga. And the class was full of famous, beautiful people. He stood next to a model and an actress.

"I said if for nothing else than the view I'll come back," he joked.

He was recovering from an injury at the time, and he felt the yoga helped him. Eventually he decided to train to become a teacher. Now he leads half a dozen popular classes a week at Laughing Lotus.

Bikram is a little controversial in the yoga world, sometimes called "McYoga" because it was designed for the masses. Every class in every city is the same, moving students through an identical sequence of poses. Teachers are even coached to repeat the same script, Resnick said. No one can say they are doing "Bikram" if they haven't been trained at the Bikram school, Resnick explained. If the do, they could face legal action.

Bikram yoga and some other types of yoga practiced at warmer temperatures have a reputation for being very physical and less overtly spiritual than many schools of yoga. In Resnick's classes there is no incense, no chanting, and little overt focus on meditation.

All of that can be seen by some people as very "un-yoga," though for others that's the draw, he said.

WARM vs. COLD

It was the heat that turned triathlon athlete Lauri Bassett on to yoga. She started over a year ago with Bikram, and now she's a regular in Resnick's classes.

"It's really nice at the beginning when you first start," she said. "It helps me get loosened up."

She likes the classes because they're hard. She sweats and feels it later.

"When I go to ski, I can feel my yoga muscles," she said.

Another student, Melanie Duchin, is in love with the stove.

"I get as close as I can to that thing without melting my yoga mat," she said.

She also likes that every class is the same, so she can track her progress.

But not everyone looks at it that way. Some prefer yoga a little less athletic and a little more spiritual. And some people just can't take the heat.

Terri Agee, who's been going to Laughing Lotus since it opened for non-warm classes, is one of those.

"It's stifling," she said. "It's hard to concentrate because I am too hot."

Resnick agreed that for some, heat can take getting used to. Sometimes the temperature causes people anxiety, but that's something they can work through.

Inner Dance Yoga Studio, a longtime institution in Spenard, doesn't offer Bikram, though there are some instructors who turn the heat up as high as 95 degrees, said owner Karen Greenwood. She doesn't teach warm.

"There are two reasons why I don't. It's incredible inefficient in Alaska to heat a room to 105 degrees," she said. "And, I don't think it's physiologically as sound."

She likes more gentle movements, and encourages her students to ease carefully into stretches. People can overdo it when they're hot. And the cooling down process after hot yoga can be very abrupt in Alaska. Going from a hot room to a cold car without time to transition can be unpleasant.

Susan Hammer, an instructor at Laughing Lotus, teaches her classes just a little warm, around 75 degrees. For her, yoga is a spiritual practice, and she doesn't get into the vibe that comes with the athletic, "how-far-can-I-push-myself" hot yoga mentality, she said. Yoga shouldn't be competitive, she said. The trend may be hitting here now, but it's already going out of style Outside, she said.

"I don't find it necessarily healthier and more enjoyable," she said. "Honestly, sometimes I think I'm going to pass out."

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.